4 ms·

whether china does this because they cannot transition into services quickly enough and they need to manufacture a new capital stream to purchase their own prod

whether china does this because they cannot transition into services quickly enough and they need to manufacture a new capital stream to purchase their own products or because of some benevolent world connection plan is largely inconsequential, where there is political will there is a way. a) china offers to triple your standard of living in the next decade through a massive transnational infrastructure project that will allow increased trade and job opportunities, growing local export sectors and connecting you into the largest economic region in the world. b) continue to be brain drained by germany and scandinavia while their large agrobusiness interests buy your farmland on the cheap and create a monoculture base of gmo exports to feed their growing welfare states, in the name of human rights and european unity of course. this is going to be a hard choice for easte-.... western eurasia. crimea and syria are just russia and america trying to get a station on this supercontinental train. the general tone towards china's plans, reminds me of the attitude towards japan and the shinkansen project in the 60s. sometimes pragmatic long term thinking beats moonshots. a traveler in 2050 will likely be on a high speed train from europe to asia than on a spaceship to low earth orbit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3LLgzO_PrI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3LLgzO_PrI

NicoJuicy 7y ago
> china offers to triple your standard of living in the next decade through a massive transnational infrastructure project that will allow increased trade and job opportunities, growing local export sectors and connecting you into the largest economic region in the world. No, they are not. They are loaning you money so you can spend it on Chinese workers/companies and they get 100% ROI.
- vuln 7y ago
  Do you have any data on how many of these “loans” are actually paid back in full and not defaulted on? Generally interested.
  - NicoJuicy 7y ago
    Just look at the trends, investments that are made. I don't have insider knowledge, just common sense. The defaults aren't really defaults, they do get paid back one way or another. Either by a 99-year lease of strategical infrastructure or something else. Most of the countries do pay back though.
    - vuln 7y ago
      Here is an example of 8 countries that are about to default. https://qz.com/1223768/china-debt-trap-these-eight-countries-are-in-danger-of-debt-overloads-from-chinas-belt-and-road-plans/ https://qz.com/1223768/china-debt-trap-these-eight-countries...
sbacic 7y ago
I don't think it's either of those things. I suspect China is doing it as a way to get a foothold in EU politics. Smaller, poorer countries are easier to bribe, coerce or just plain intimidate than say France or Germany. Furthermore, those investments will do nothing to fix the problems those countries have. My biggest concern is that those countries will not be able to honor their obligations to China and the consequences of that.
- microcolonel 7y ago
  > Smaller, poorer countries are easier to bribe, coerce or just plain intimidate than say France or Germany. Not to mention, many of those countries are already being bullied and coerced by France and Germany anyway, so they may see some international abuse as the lesser of two evils. Now, if countries like Romania could get their act together and stop accepting the free outward movement of people who they've just paid to educate, maybe the equation changes.
  - sbacic 7y ago
    To be fair, some of that bullying is for good causes - such as human rights and rule of law. Free movement is one of the cornerstones of the European Union. If Romania were to restrict it, I think that the people most pissed with that decision would be the Romanians. This might even be a blessing in disguise, as it could generate enough outrage to fix the problems ailing the country. Though considering the apathy and disillusionment with democracy in much of Europe, I'm not sure that even that would work.
    - microcolonel 7y ago
      > To be fair, some of that bullying is for good causes - such as human rights and rule of law. I'm all for human rights and the rule of law, but the rule of law without sovereignty is just tyranny, and human rights without sovereign rights deteriorate inevitably. > Free movement is one of the cornerstones of the European Union. If Romania were to restrict it, I think that the people most pissed with that decision would be the Romanians. The suggestion from other member states to Romania (which, I should clarify, I have no real personal attachment to), is that they should take on migrants from even poorer economies; the problem with this is that poorer economies generally do not produce the educated people Romania is losing, but a further set of people who they must educate, and who will ultimately be able to simply hop on a bus and setttle in a place where even low-skilled work is better compensated than high-skilled work in their home country. I don't think it's great when countries try to trap their citizens arbitrarily, but by the same token, they can not simply allow their best and brightest the option to take their skills somewhere more developed, and have that cost those people nothing. Furthermore, the end result of brain drain is a country full of nationalists and wretches, which seems to me like a bad thing to aim at, even if the process seems fair.
mises 7y ago
When Japan built its Shinkansen, she had just been thoroughly beaten in a war, and we were reasonably confident she was no longer "bad". We have no such confidences with China; she has proven herself to be "bad" at many times. She is still locking ethnic minorities in concentration camps, continues to try to take over Taiwan, has taken over Tibet, mistreats her citizens, is focused on expanding the surveillance state, and is (in my view) intent on eventual world domination. Whether she will achieve this goal is debatable, but the risk is still there, and having many developing nations beholden to her is a risk for the free world. At some point, I would argue any nation with more people than the free world in total that also has a totalitarian government is a risk to the rest of us. It's important to bound the influence of China, because should a war break out, the scale of death would be much larger than ever seen before. This is both because of China's sheer number of bodies she can throw at a problem and because of better technology.
- cerealbad 7y ago
  this is a joke right? "every nation but mine.... (acts in its own self-interest and needs to be encircled should it try to expand)". this is exceptional in it's dullness. you want to benefit all of humanity but also out-compete every other nation on earth- but i thought a nation was just an idea, or is it an individual? maximize individual freedom, but prevent the inevitable conflict, loss, suffering and death that freedom would bring about. think totalitarian governments are a systemic risk to world peace, but not your absolutist ideas which allow no room for compromise with a simple difference of opinion but create escalating tensions and threatening rhetoric. what are you suggesting? in order to save the chinese people from themselves you will bomb them, lend them paper to rebuilt and prop up a puppet government? china needs new markets, because the chinese people demand it, through their production and consumption. when you anchor your superstructure of belief on a fantasy, divorced from history, politics, and the state of the natural world with it's finite resources, no good decision dilemmas, and complex inter-dependencies your conclusions are crackpot lunacies. show me an individual, and you will show me a barbarian, a beast of burden, a machine. a human being is neither free nor undivided, the very process of existence requires division, sacrifice, and the reduction of freedom. when you say 'i want to be free' i hear 'do what i say', 'think like i do'. give me the freedom to be free of you. the tyrants and despots of history, always promising the sky and offering a shallow hole in the dirt. a close reading of the 19th and 20th century would do you well. it was the sudden contraction of american banks lending to weimar germany brought about by an ill prepared and newly formed central bank that caused communist and reactionary forces to emerge and fight for europe. trade restrictions were placed on germany with the express goal to twist the iron glove to war, largely for the benefit of expanding american manufacturing, banking and business interests in the war-weary and destitute post-war period. china is peacefully doing 80 years later what the allies did by force and no regard for human life. why else were so many cities fire bombed and destroyed? what did the americans do in korea? vietnam? what are american forces doing in the middle east? borrow, bomb and build. freedom is the carrot, capital is the stick. the guilty man sees his sins in the faces of others. the free world doesn't look so free anymore. so lets get down to realities, you will escalate, china will defend, you will go bankrupt since you can't manufacture a working plane anymore and the world doesn't want to buy your debt, china will take your place in the northern hemisphere and you can go back to setting up banana republics in your backyard and liberating the other america from bad ideas. how is venezeula working out? nb. this post is largely in jest, you present and therefore receive the treatment of a fool.

NicoJuicy 7y ago

> china offers to triple your standard of living in the next decade through a massive transnational infrastructure project that will allow increased trade and job opportunities, growing local export sectors and connecting you into the largest economic region in the world. No, they are not. They are loaning you money so you can spend it on Chinese workers/companies and they get 100% ROI.

vuln 7y ago
Do you have any data on how many of these “loans” are actually paid back in full and not defaulted on? Generally interested.
- NicoJuicy 7y ago
  Just look at the trends, investments that are made. I don't have insider knowledge, just common sense. The defaults aren't really defaults, they do get paid back one way or another. Either by a 99-year lease of strategical infrastructure or something else. Most of the countries do pay back though.
  - vuln 7y ago
    Here is an example of 8 countries that are about to default. https://qz.com/1223768/china-debt-trap-these-eight-countries-are-in-danger-of-debt-overloads-from-chinas-belt-and-road-plans/ https://qz.com/1223768/china-debt-trap-these-eight-countries...

sbacic 7y ago

I don't think it's either of those things. I suspect China is doing it as a way to get a foothold in EU politics. Smaller, poorer countries are easier to bribe, coerce or just plain intimidate than say France or Germany. Furthermore, those investments will do nothing to fix the problems those countries have. My biggest concern is that those countries will not be able to honor their obligations to China and the consequences of that.

microcolonel 7y ago
> Smaller, poorer countries are easier to bribe, coerce or just plain intimidate than say France or Germany. Not to mention, many of those countries are already being bullied and coerced by France and Germany anyway, so they may see some international abuse as the lesser of two evils. Now, if countries like Romania could get their act together and stop accepting the free outward movement of people who they've just paid to educate, maybe the equation changes.
- sbacic 7y ago
  To be fair, some of that bullying is for good causes - such as human rights and rule of law. Free movement is one of the cornerstones of the European Union. If Romania were to restrict it, I think that the people most pissed with that decision would be the Romanians. This might even be a blessing in disguise, as it could generate enough outrage to fix the problems ailing the country. Though considering the apathy and disillusionment with democracy in much of Europe, I'm not sure that even that would work.
  - microcolonel 7y ago
    > To be fair, some of that bullying is for good causes - such as human rights and rule of law. I'm all for human rights and the rule of law, but the rule of law without sovereignty is just tyranny, and human rights without sovereign rights deteriorate inevitably. > Free movement is one of the cornerstones of the European Union. If Romania were to restrict it, I think that the people most pissed with that decision would be the Romanians. The suggestion from other member states to Romania (which, I should clarify, I have no real personal attachment to), is that they should take on migrants from even poorer economies; the problem with this is that poorer economies generally do not produce the educated people Romania is losing, but a further set of people who they must educate, and who will ultimately be able to simply hop on a bus and setttle in a place where even low-skilled work is better compensated than high-skilled work in their home country. I don't think it's great when countries try to trap their citizens arbitrarily, but by the same token, they can not simply allow their best and brightest the option to take their skills somewhere more developed, and have that cost those people nothing. Furthermore, the end result of brain drain is a country full of nationalists and wretches, which seems to me like a bad thing to aim at, even if the process seems fair.

mises 7y ago

When Japan built its Shinkansen, she had just been thoroughly beaten in a war, and we were reasonably confident she was no longer "bad". We have no such confidences with China; she has proven herself to be "bad" at many times. She is still locking ethnic minorities in concentration camps, continues to try to take over Taiwan, has taken over Tibet, mistreats her citizens, is focused on expanding the surveillance state, and is (in my view) intent on eventual world domination. Whether she will achieve this goal is debatable, but the risk is still there, and having many developing nations beholden to her is a risk for the free world. At some point, I would argue any nation with more people than the free world in total that also has a totalitarian government is a risk to the rest of us. It's important to bound the influence of China, because should a war break out, the scale of death would be much larger than ever seen before. This is both because of China's sheer number of bodies she can throw at a problem and because of better technology.

cerealbad 7y ago
this is a joke right? "every nation but mine.... (acts in its own self-interest and needs to be encircled should it try to expand)". this is exceptional in it's dullness. you want to benefit all of humanity but also out-compete every other nation on earth- but i thought a nation was just an idea, or is it an individual? maximize individual freedom, but prevent the inevitable conflict, loss, suffering and death that freedom would bring about. think totalitarian governments are a systemic risk to world peace, but not your absolutist ideas which allow no room for compromise with a simple difference of opinion but create escalating tensions and threatening rhetoric. what are you suggesting? in order to save the chinese people from themselves you will bomb them, lend them paper to rebuilt and prop up a puppet government? china needs new markets, because the chinese people demand it, through their production and consumption. when you anchor your superstructure of belief on a fantasy, divorced from history, politics, and the state of the natural world with it's finite resources, no good decision dilemmas, and complex inter-dependencies your conclusions are crackpot lunacies. show me an individual, and you will show me a barbarian, a beast of burden, a machine. a human being is neither free nor undivided, the very process of existence requires division, sacrifice, and the reduction of freedom. when you say 'i want to be free' i hear 'do what i say', 'think like i do'. give me the freedom to be free of you. the tyrants and despots of history, always promising the sky and offering a shallow hole in the dirt. a close reading of the 19th and 20th century would do you well. it was the sudden contraction of american banks lending to weimar germany brought about by an ill prepared and newly formed central bank that caused communist and reactionary forces to emerge and fight for europe. trade restrictions were placed on germany with the express goal to twist the iron glove to war, largely for the benefit of expanding american manufacturing, banking and business interests in the war-weary and destitute post-war period. china is peacefully doing 80 years later what the allies did by force and no regard for human life. why else were so many cities fire bombed and destroyed? what did the americans do in korea? vietnam? what are american forces doing in the middle east? borrow, bomb and build. freedom is the carrot, capital is the stick. the guilty man sees his sins in the faces of others. the free world doesn't look so free anymore. so lets get down to realities, you will escalate, china will defend, you will go bankrupt since you can't manufacture a working plane anymore and the world doesn't want to buy your debt, china will take your place in the northern hemisphere and you can go back to setting up banana republics in your backyard and liberating the other america from bad ideas. how is venezeula working out? nb. this post is largely in jest, you present and therefore receive the treatment of a fool.